Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tomatina

Yesterday was the Tomatina festival.
This is our experience.

Before:

Mala and I had done minimal research
about the festival, which mostly consisted of reading accounts on
other people's blogs. Mala watched a few videos. I went to the
festival website to look up the rules. (I love rules.) We had
prepared thusly:

In USA:

Bought/brought crappy shoes, shirts,
and shorts just for this event that are essentially disposable.
Thanks H&M and Old Navy.

Packed swim goggles to wear to protect
our eyes. These were superseded by woodworking goggles brought by
Patrick which were far superior to the ones I brought.

Bought a disposable, waterproof camera

Morning of:

Brought no cell phones, wallets,
passports, or other essentials to the actual festival; only a few of
us brought money or credit cards in plastic bags shoved into shoes or
buttonable pockets. I brought nothing but gave 50 Euro to Mala to
hold.

Brought two towels between the six of
us. We left the towels in the cabs we took there which also took us
home.

And so we were ready. We took a before
picture at the apartment. We left the house at 7am.

Tomatina Morning:

We opted to take taxis to the event. We
hemmed and hawed over it, but after realizing the train station was
probably a half hour from our place (by subway), and that a bus may
indeed make me carsick, we booked taxis using the concierge at the
hotel across the street. They didn't have any van taxis available, so we booked two cars. Bus would have been 16 Euro round trip per
person, taxi was 30 Euro. Totally worth it.

We met our taxis at 7am outside our
place. The sun wasn't up but it was light out. We were pretty amped.
The drive only took about a half hour. We were told to get there
early, and that traffic might delay us, so we left plenty of time.
The actual tomato fight starts at 11am.

Our taxis dropped us off a bit outside
of the main part of town. They parked on a small cul de sac off the
main street. We walked the additional half hour or so into the town
square. I imagine this was not a typical Wednesday in
Buñol, Spain.

Buñol is a town of 9,000 people. It's
tiny and run-down and kinda dirty. There are nearly as many empty lots of
dry weeds as there are decrepit businesses along the walk into town.
On Tomatina day, vendors line the streets. Not, like, Heineken
stands, just people cooking sausages and other assorted meats and serving sandwiches and drinks. People are selling cans of beer out of plastic bags for a
Euro each. Hand-drawn signs indicate that you can leave your
belongings with someone and pick them up later for a small fee. Music
blasts from various locations, all hip-hop/techno/dance music that
has the morning people bouncing around and the rest of us smiling.

The crowd is decidedly, and not
surprisingly, young. Probably majority college kids. Lots of Aussies. Probably at least half the
people or more seemed to be speaking English. Some people were in
silly outfits like onesies or tutus. Most people were in shorts,
crappy shoes or flip flops, and t-shirts or tank tops.

As we entered town with the rest of the
influx, the sun was up. It was probably 80 or 85 in the sun before
9am. We followed the masses down a road on a large hill, meandering through the
residential part of town. Houses and small apartment buildings lined
the streets, some on cliffs above; the landscape was quite steep in some parts. There were few trees; the housing in this part of town had no
yards. We passed Buñol Castle from across a ravine, with run-down
houses built right up to it on one side. We passed the police
station, ambulances poised to receive the carnage of the day.

We reached the bottom of the hill –
downtown. The city is small, the streets are narrow. Small businesses
and apartments line the streets on both sides with no setback from
the sidewalks. Windows are shuttered, only select businesses are open
to cater to the Tomatina-istas. I made that word up and I like it. I
should have sold t-shirts.

It was probably only 8.30am by this
point; we had time to kill. After walking around and scoping the lay
of the land (and finding the center of the upcoming festivities), we
found a quad to share a few drinks and sit and wait. We established
said quad as our meeting spot in case we got separated, which we saw
as a likely possibility.

We sat for a few hours, drinking,
people-watching, and wondering what was going to happen. It seemed to
be the general consensus that people did not know what to expect.
There were locals around, and surely this wasn't everyone's first
time, but the people we spoke to and overheard had all the same
questions we did: Where were the tomatoes dropped off? Where should
we stand? Why was this and that road being blocked off? What time is
it?

At about ten till 11am, we decided to
head into the crowds that blanketed the streets. We had seen the
center of town hours earlier and it had already been packed at that
time. We decided that none of us had any interest in trying to get
back there; it was going to be the center of the madness.

Instead, we stood in a moderately
crowded T intersection of two streets. Six-ish story apartments
surrounded us on all sides. A short bridge lie behind us, leading
back out of the town center. People on the surrounding balconies dumped buckets
and emptied hoses of water onto the crowd. Said crowd squealed with
delight and invited more. It was hot, the water felt good.

Then we heard the cannons that started
the tomato fight. The crowd roared.

Tomatina, a Tomato Fight:

For the first half hour or so (no one
had a watch), we stood in that small street with hundreds of others.
We got water dumped on us intermittently from all sides. We dried
almost immediately. It was probably close to 100 degrees in the sun.
Our major tomato focus during this time was one particular balcony of
a few men who had tomatoes to throw into the crowd. Everyone within a
block radius was focused on them as they pelted people with
tomatoes at a leisurely pace. People tried to throw the tomatoes back
at those gentlemen, but they were on the fourth floor and were hard to
hit. Lloyd was the sole success; he chucked a perfectly aimed tomato
and whacked one of the shirtless men straight in the chest.
Congratulatory high fives were exchanged by strangers and friends
alike. He later smacked a person on another balcony with a tomato. Good aim, that one.

This is when it occurred to me that it
would be pretty easy to get hurt. We had goggles on (Marisa's
boyfriend, Patrick, had actually brought nice woodworking goggles for
us all to wear, so we were saved our sad swimming goggles), but being
pelted in the head with a fast-flying tomato was a real possibility.
At least compared to my normal life.

I spent most of that half hour looking
around vigilantly. Smiling, but watching. Ducking randomly and not
really at the right times. My first hit was straight in the mouth. It
wasn't a hard throw, considering, the tomato wasn't huge and my
mouth wasn't open. But it was startling, and I learned something very
important very quickly – the tomatoes are gross. Do not let them get in your mouth.
We learned to despise the smell right away.

Then the first tomato truck came
through. It came from in front of us, from the direction of the
center of the festival, and continued past us down the bridge behind
us. It was supposed to bring tomatoes, but it had already run out.
The truck itself was a large dump truck with people in the bed who
were charged with throwing tomatoes out into the crowd as the truck scooted down the street at a snail's pace. This truck
was empty except for the people who were completely covered in tomato
remnants.

The second truck came about ten minutes
later with the same results. We were disappointed. We decided to head
toward the action.

The six of us formed a line, holding
hands and shoulders and waists to stay together. Jeremy, Marisa's
British friend and the tallest of all of us, led us through the
crowd. We weaved and snaked and managed to stay together. We
approached the T intersection of the next street just as the third
truck was coming through. Though we had only moved forward a couple
hundred feet, the situation was entirely different.

The crowd had thickened to a
suffocating density. And, as the truck inched through the street, the
people were displaced to either side making it that much more crowded
as the truck passed. Seeing the truck was about 50 feet in front of
us, Jeremy and his friend Lloyd took it upon themselves to shove all
six of us into the heaving crowd that was bulging from the side
street of the T intersection. This was done with great difficulty, as
there was nowhere to be pushed. It was like those Japanese subway
cars where the guards just grab hands and mush people closer and
closer together until there is literally no more room.

It was fun though. Most people were smiling. Yelling. Laughing. The crowd swayed uncontrollably – where
were we trying to go exactly? You could nearly raise your feet off
the ground and remain just where you were. It was lung-crushingly,
heart-poundingly mad. The six of us made an amoeba-group with Marisa
and Mala in the middle-ish, and the four of us surrounding them, all
with our backs facing out. We had arms around each other and hands
held tight. We moved together with the crowd, all keeping our footing
and keeping together. It was awesome.

After a few minutes the truck finally
came parallel with us. It still had tomatoes. The only problem with
our six-person amoeba was that there was no defense against flying
foods (and clothing). Not that anyone else had better access to defenses, really. The tomatoes came down like rain. They weren't
whole tomatoes, more like tomato mush. As though the people in the
truck had stepped on the tomatoes first, mushing each tomato into a
dozen pieces of juicy, seedy, tomato skin.

Tomato pieces flew everywhere. They
were in your hair. Your mouth. Your sports bra. The truck was loud,
diesel. The crowd was screaming, cheering, rabid. Twice, Marisa was
pelted with an article of clothing in the face. Lloyd yelled “Gross!”
before grabbing the clothing and flinging it elsewhere into the crowd. A boy
mushed a tomato-covered shirt into Mala's hair for some reason. She yelled in disgust. Patrick's goggles were ripped off. The rest of us were extremely
thankful to still have our goggles. We struggled to maintain our
amoeba. Which became more difficult as I realized we were ankle deep
in a rushing stream of tomato sauce on the ground. The gutters were literally flowing with tomato juice and tomato pulp. It was
incredible.

The canon sounded to end the fight.
That's one of the rules – when the end cannon sounds at noon, you
can't throw tomatoes anymore. This rule was not followed. The fourth
truck was just about parallel to us when the cannon sounded. The
people in the truck made no move to stop and hurled tomatoes at the
crowd just as the truck before had. We decided to head out and amoeba-d
our way down the side street into which we had pressed ourselves to
escape the path of the tomato truck.

The crowd quickly thinned as we proceeded down the alley. We took
stock as we walked down the road, still densely crowded, but now you
could walk without having to hold hands. We were covered. Our hair,
arms, legs, clothes. We looked like you had tried to make pasta with
us. Our shoes were the worst, the tomato paste just perched on the
tops of our feet like bruscetta. We smelled like hell. We
spat out seeds. We picked mess out of our hair. We, finally, removed our goggles.

Getting Out of Tomatina:

Many
Buñol residents take to hosing off
the tomato-covered visitors after the festival. We stopped at more
than one person with a hose to get cleaned off. We ladies stripped to
sports bras, the boys to bare chests. We carried our smelly, stained
shirts and tank tops and goggles as we talked and laughed our way out
of the town.

Our taxi drivers were supposed to meet
us at the same location where they had dropped us off. Some of us were
skeptical that this would actually happen. We had paid them in
advance. Some of us had left clothing in their cars (not me). Would
we be able to get back to them in time? Would we be able to find them
again? Would they have indeed waited for us? Yes, yes, and yes.

We retraced our steps after only a
small amount of inter-amoeba arguing about which direction we were
facing, and were back to the taxis after about a half hour walk. We
weren't totally clean, but we were far better off than many people
who had apparently left with no rinsing. They were disgusting. I kept
thinking someone might accidentally rub up against me and was
dreading the possibility.

The festivities continued on the
streets upon our exit, much as they had been earlier that morning.
Many people were stopping to eat, drink, pee (in a port-o-potty or
not). Tour buses lined the streets waiting to take their charges back
to the nearby town of Valencia where most everyone was saying (us
included). Aside from Lloyd stopping to buy some chips (Really Lloyd,
chips? Not water?), we made it un-rushed and un-hindered to the taxis
with plenty of time to spare.

Our drivers were there. They shook our
hands and kissed our cheeks as though we were friends. They had
fitted the seats with plastic bags so that our tomato filth and
stench wouldn't get in their seats. They drove us back to Valencia as
we all dozed happily in the air conditioning.

After Tomatina:

We got back to the apartment, payed
homage to the gods of air conditioning, and started alternating
shower usage. We stripped our filthy clothes off and lay things on
the balcony to dry. I showered. It was heavenly. The tub looked a bit
like I was making a marinara sauce, flecked with tomato peel and
seeds from my hair, arms, legs. I didn't want to see another tomato
again for at least a week.

We napped. Then we reminisced. We
agreed that we had a perfect Tomatina experience. We got there with
plenty of time to spare. No one had lost anything, not even each
other. We started in the “beginner” area on the outskirts, which
let us get used to the situation and not tire ourselves out, then we
moved into the action for just the right amount of time to have fun
but not so long that we got tired, hurt, or claustrophobic. The taxis
were a godsend – the perfect way to get there and back. The day was
hot and sunny, but the water being dumped on us had kept us cool for
most of the time. None of us even got a sunburn.

The only issue I had was that the
tomatoes seemed to provoke a reaction from my skin. I was itchy the
rest of the day and the following day. We were trying to deduce why I
was so itchy (new soap? something i ate? bug bites?), but I concluded that it had to be the tomato juice or
acid. I was itchy starting only after the festival, and only on my
arms and bottom half of my legs – the exact parts (besides my face)
that were covered in tomato goo. I am very glad my face was spared
from the itchyness; I assume that's because I wiped my face more
often than the rest of me during the fight. Also, this is an ailment
particular to me – no one else in our group felt any ill effects
from the tomatoes. Weird.

So, that was Tomatina. It was mad fun.
The group of six was absolutely perfect, in quantity and quality. It
was as smooth an experience as possible, I'd say, and I'm very happy
we went. Pictures to be posted upon my return.